Hi, I maintain computers for family and friends, and some of them are still stuck with dial-up. They have anti-virus programs installed and these programs often want to do definition updates, which can take hours on dial-up. This is quite a nuisance, and they sometimes ask me for advice. I'm not really sure what to tell them, though. The virus definitions ARE important, so they should download them. Do you think it's a bad idea to advise that they disable the auto-definition updates and do it manually once a month? Is that not frequent enough? What would you guys advise? Thanks very much!

What anti-virus program takes hours to download definition updates? Would they consider using a different program if the definition updates were smaller and only took a few minutes to download updates?

Thanks for the reply! Sometimes virus definitions can be several megabytes and when people are trying to do things while the definitions download, that is what can take hours. If the definitions download by themselves, it wouldn't take as long, but it's still somewhat of a hassle. What program would you recommend?

Hiya nrogers64 When I used to have dial-up I was using Norton for a while and found the exact problems your rellies and friends have. I had trouble using the net while the AV program done it's thing in the background, and it would seem to take forever sometimes. Following some advice given by various computing.net members back then I removed it and gave Avast a blast instead and was pleasantly surprised. Even though Avast was still doing the updates in the background I didn't notice it nearly as much and I found it completing the job alot quicker too. The virus definition file sizes are alot smaller and it doesn't hi-jack your connection bandwidth. I still use it today.

most AV scanners allow you to manually download the virus definitions and put them on a cd or usb stick. You could download the defs on a computer that has high speed before you go to the dial up computer. Tech Alpha Computer Forums

Thanks for all the help! I think I'll have them use Avast (which I use as well) and have them download definitions on computers with high speed Internet when convenient

Do it one a day not once a month. Most programs have the updates you can download like to a disk maybe a jump drive and update them that way. But they need it once a day. Keyboard not detected. Hit F1 to Continue. BREAKFAST.SYS HALTED Cerial port not Responding!!